Irving looks toward second year with Celtics

Kyrie Irving is anxious to get back to work and back on the court with a group of players that impressed him with their postseason run.

Meeting with the media Tuesday afternoon, Irving looked ahead to the 2018 season while sharing his thoughts on what he observed as the Celtics came within one game of qualifying for the NBA Finals.

"For me, I'm just glad that everyone got to see how special they are on a bigger stage," said Irving when asked about the play of his young teammates. "I've been talking about how great they were... they were always locked in and then when they were afforded the opportunity to take the reins of the team, you saw them take full advantage."

Irving can opt-out of his contract after next season and become a free agent. He fully expects the consistent questions surrounding his status, and offered a suggestion on how to handle the process.

"My hope is that we can limit it to maybe one question a day about what I'm doing next year?" joked Irving when asked about it Tuesday. "That's my hope, but obviously I cannot fully control that. But I think, you guys can feel, my attitude is really just 'redemption' next year, really integrating myself with our team again and really focusing on winning a championship. That's really the only thing I'm worried about."

As expected, questions about LeBron James also came up, and Irving was quick to say, "I'll let management handle that."

Cox Media Group